“Yonder,” said the knight, “yonder is your forest hermitage, Bishop, where Pandart kept house for those whom you cherished. Stir your wits, man; is your memory so slow?”
Jocelyn winced; his lip quivered; there was a moist mist over his eyes.
“God judge me, I know not the place,” he said. “Your words are meaningless, sinner that I am.”
Again Tristan’s sword touched the Bishop’s shoulder; the man squirmed under it like a frightened dog.
“Ogier is no name to you? Come, priest, look into my eyes.”
“Ogier, by God’s light, I know no such name.”
“Nor Rosamunde, Lady of Joyous Vale, nor even Columbe whom ye did to death? Lie not to me, Jocelyn of Agravale, for you know my face; I am that Tristan who served in your guard. It was I who slew Ogier in yonder woods, and set the Lady Rosamunde safe in Holy Guard. It is my sister who lies dead under yonder cedar. Tell me, by God, whether you deserve not death.”
Jocelyn bowed his shoulders beneath the words as a slave stoops from the hissing lash. He clutched his bosom, choked, fell prone, grovelled at Tristan’s feet. But in Tristan’s heart there was no glimmer of pity.
“Strip him, sirs,” were his words to his men. “When ye have scourged him down to the island, set him in his priest’s robes by my sister’s grave. Guard him there till I shall come.”
Samson’s old followers broke their ranks, stripped Jocelyn naked, unbuckled their belts, and drove him down towards the river. Whimpering, grovelling, he took his chastisement, spurned and scorned, the creature of Fate. They dragged him over the rocks in the bed of the river, robed him in the state robes they had taken from his tent, and bound him to the cedar tree in the garden. Such was the pilgrimage he made that day to the grave of Columbe, Tristan’s sister.